Sunday, 28 July 2013

When I was running through the requirements of gear for the Amelle of the 'Sugarbabes' video 'Love is all we need' with Rodney Charters, the subject of a smoke machine came up, I said I had a super powerful one, Rodney took me at my word.

The smoke machine was going to play a key role in the back lit performance shot in the studio

All seemed good until it really started to sink in that everything in this shoot seemed to be so much bigger and remarkably engineered than most of the equipment I encounter when shooting video.

We arrived at studio 3 of Park Royal studios and soon the subject of the smoke machine cropped up, I pointed to the small bag that my smoke machine was in, and it would be fair to say that quite a few faces dropped, indeed there were murmurings that the machine was simply too small for the job.

It was a big studio after all and these folk did have all the gear delivered in a sizeable truck, I confess that even though I put up a spirited and confident defence of my smoke machine, that I did begin to have doubts.

Monday, 22 July 2013

The 6D has many strong suits, small, light, quiet shutter, great low light performance but its killer feature is Wifi.

It takes photographic possibilities to a whole new place, giving me an advantage in remote shooting which enables me to get pictures that you cannot any other way (I'm still not quite ready yet to share the results but they are very impressive)

So far so good 'only' £1500 spent, where could it possibly go wrong?

Well it has, in the very best possible way.

A few years ago I bought one of the very first Phase One P65+ backs and I have been very happy with it.

In some ways I could not see how it could easily be improved over the short term to make me part with my hard earned cash, it has been my mainstay for 'The Forest' series which is due to debut its first phase in full at the Pingyao International Photography festival in September.

The all new IQ backs came along and with their new wonderful touch screen LCD and up to 80MP I was impressed, but not quite enough to pull the the trigger.

Why not?

I felt that there was something else coming, some further potential to be unlocked that Phase had not owned up to.

With the IQ2 backs my suspicions were confirmed and reliable WiFi made a bow.

All of a sudden it made sense, with no need for a laptop to shoot 'tethered' with challenging and complex setups.

One day, I thought

After the 6D experience I have come to realise that day is now.

There are all sorts of clever and highly lucrative jobs I have lined up for this back.

I went for the Phase One IQ280 as tempting as the IQ260 was with its capability of one hour exposures.

It is a sizeable investment BUT as I said the WiFi capability more than justifies the investment which I believe will cover itself quite quickly.

His magic touch transformed some of the biggest named bars, restaurants and hotels won him a place in the coveted GQ man of the year awards.

I was asked to photograph him at the Wolsey in one of his creations.

He was a high flyer but a really nice guy, witty and funny too, with a fine understanding of the important part that light and lighting plays in the ambience of a special venue, in fact we talked extensively about this.

So even though he was not a photographer he really 'got' lighting.

This shot was far from easy.

Lit with multiple lights in a busy high class restaurant, there were understandably lots of conditions we had to abide by.

I recall it was one Elinchrom Ranger bounced off the ceiling, another with a Chimera medium softbox as the key light, with one more concealed with a snoot lighting the wall behind him to give the little glow.

Not that this matters one jot, but I know some will want to know.

Skin cancer is something that many of us in the UK do not take seriously enough, not enough sun we think...

Well we are wrong.

As the video I posted earlier this week said, we should be more aware of the potentially harmful effects of the sun particularly in the beautiful weather we are having.

Tuesday, 16 July 2013

I'm pleased to say, a very busy and diverse time I'm having at the moment.

Stills, moving and 'new' media too.

I really have a great deal of admiration for The John Lewis partnership.

A company which has an authentic commitment to the community with projects like the golden Jubilee trust, where they encourage selected partners(they are a partnership) to go on paid secondment out into the community helping charities take their work to the next level.

I was commissioned to shoot this short about Will Robbins.

All shot in one (very full) day with the Canon C300, with Zeiss ZE glass.

It was shot by myself and Ed Checkley, Edited by Melissa Tanti, with the music by Doug Black-Heaton.

We integrated a fun Banana time lapse by Wildern school which forms part of the campaign.